


Mersey on the Ice

by onstraysod



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hope and faith, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 01:36:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17132552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onstraysod/pseuds/onstraysod
Summary: On Christmas Eve, Tom Hartnell spends some time with his brother John. And with Captain Crozier, too.Written for succession as part of the12 Days of Carnivale





	Mersey on the Ice

The last gift he’d given his older brother had been one of his spare shirts. White with narrow blue stripes, it was missing a few buttons, but it was clean and that was all that mattered. John wouldn’t resent the strings that fastened the empty buttonholes any more than he’d begrudge the initials “T.H.” sewn at the hem in red thread.

Once John was safely buried on the shores of Beechey, Tom had asked Dr. Stanley for one of the shirts John had worn in sick bay. There was one that was salvageable, unstained by any of the blood John had coughed up in his last illness, and after it had been washed it was returned to Tom, neatly folded. It was a match to the one he’d surrendered, white with scarlet stripes rather than blue, but with John’s initials woven above the hem in the same red thread. Tom had never truly appreciated before the precision of their mother’s needlework, but he did so now, running his fingertips over the small letters and imagining her as he’d seen her a hundred times, bent over the table, her work held close to the lamp.

That first Christmas Eve frozen off King William Land, Tom went up on deck after supper, John’s shirt beneath his jumper and coat, warm against his skin. With the other men still below and all watches suspended for the holiday, it was perfectly silent, the wind having died down in the early afternoon. Several previous days of storm had left a good ten inches of snow piled upon the gunwale, and Tom gathered this in his mittened hands, shaping it into balls. The air was so clear, the stars standing out so vivid and seemingly close in the sky, that Tom almost fancied he could hear them, a faint sustained ring like two pieces of metal struck together. The thought made him grin.

“Daft. Yeah, I know,” he murmured, his breath a billowing cloud that froze to his lips.

He peered out into the darkness, picked out a hummock shaped like a lopsided carriage, and took aim. Swinging his arm forward, he launched the snowball into the air and could just make out its arc over the ice, though where it landed was lost to the shadows. He heard it, though, in that preternatural stillness: the soft puff of the snow bursting as it struck against some solid surface.

“A sloop’s length at least, I’d wager,” Tom said, and picked up another snowball.

“Shall I send the Marines out so you’ll have someone to aim for?” a voice behind him asked.

Tom turned and promptly straightened, tugging his forelock in salute. “Captain, sir. That’s not necessary, though I could hit them if you wanted me to, I’m sure.”

Crozier laughed, walking over to join him at the rail. “I’ll keep that in mind should any of them require punishment.” He breathed in the frigid air and clapped his hands together, looking out at the ice. “What’s brought you up here in such temperatures, Thomas? The men are getting up some entertainments below. I believe Shanks has been prevailed upon to break out his fiddle, and Farr has started a song.”

“I’ll join them again in a bit, sir. I just wanted to spend a little time up here.”

“Lobbing snowballs at the ice?”

Hartnell smiled. “Not the ice, sir. It’s the Mersey.”

Crozier looked at him curiously. “The Mersey?”

Hartnell nodded. “John and I — we used to like to go down to the river when we was kids, before either of us had first gone to sea. We’d gather stones and throw them as far as we could out over the water, making a contest of it. Who could throw one the furthest, who could hit a piece of driftwood as it floated past, who could throw the length of a yacht or a sloop or a bomb vessel. We’d spend hours at it. A few times our mam had to come fetch us back for dinner.”

Crozier smiled. “A harmless enough occupation for a couple of boys.”

“I suppose so, sir. I had the stronger arm, but John had better aim. He could hit anything, no matter how fast the tide was running. He won every time.”

Crozier watched as Hartnell rolled a snowball from one palm to the other, back and forth, before taking aim at another hummock and pitching the missile through the air. It was a faint blur of white in the starlight, disappearing to sight before exploding with a crunch upon the ice field.

“May I try?” Crozier asked. Hartnell nodded and handed the captain a snowball.

“Make for that hummock there, just before us,” Hartnell said, pointing. “The one that kind of looks like an elephant with its trunk in the air. See it?”

“I see it.” Crozier pulled back his arm. “That’s a long way.” With a quiet grunt, he threw the projectile. Hartnell leaned out over the gunwale, squinting into the darkness.

“I think you struck it, sir.”

Crozier laughed. “I think you’re being generous. I doubt I got it half the distance.”

Hartnell shrugged. “It never really was about hitting or missing. It was just about the throwing, and the talking in between.”

“You spoke of going to sea, I’d imagine?”

“All the time, sir. Talked about where we’d sail to, the kind of lands we’d see. The things we’d bring back home. John wanted to get our mam a flamingo.” He laughed. “Not sure why or what she’d have done with it. Just wanted to do it, you know, go somewhere flamingos live and bring one back.” Hartnell leaned both arms against the rail. “Guess that’s up to me, now.”

Crozier gazed up at the stars. “You’ve borne his loss with great fortitude, son,” he said softly.

Hartnell shook his head. “He’s not lost, sir.” In response to Crozier’s look of surprise, he stood straight again, both hands gripping the rail. “I mean, it doesn’t feel like he is. Not to me. It’s hard to explain. I always thought losing someone like that would feel like an emptiness. Like hanging off the taffrail with nothing but the sea beneath your feet, you know? But I don’t feel like that. It’s like he was never left back on that island, but like he’s still here, right beside me.”

“They say we keep the ones we love alive in our memories,” Crozier said, but Hartnell shook his head.

“No, begging your pardon, sir, but that’s not it. It’s not just memory. It’s presence. He’s not here, _but he’s here_ \- same as he always was. I don’t mean it like those spiritualist people who pretend they can hear the dead speak. I don’t hear my brother talking with my ears, I don’t see him with my eyes. But I feel him near me. And I know, in my mind, what he would say, clear as if I could hear him speaking the words.” He shrugged. ”I don’t know how to explain it. I never thought about these things before.” He glanced aside at Crozier. “Are you a religious man, captain?”

Crozier hesitated. “If by religious you mean do I place much emphasis in rites and ceremonies, then no. But if you mean do I believe in some power greater than ourselves? Then yes.” He sighed. “I’m not sure how any man could come to lands such as these and keep their senses, without such a belief.”

“I’m like you, sir. I’ve never had much time for all the rules and trappings. But I’ve always thought there had to be something else, something more than this. Else what’s all the hardship for? All the suffering? Now I understand things better than I used to. I know that, whatever happens to us here, it’s not the end. Lieutenant Irving told me I should be comforted, that John had gone on to heaven. But I don’t think that’s true. I think he’s still here, with me. Our mam did tell him once to always watch out for me, being my older brother and all. I suppose even dying didn’t cure him of that.” Hartnell turned to Crozier, brow furrowed. “But maybe I’m being selfish, captain, do you think? Maybe I’m keeping him here, when I should be letting him go?”

Crozier reached over and patted the young man’s arm. “I don’t think you’re being selfish at all, Thomas. I think your brother’s free to be wherever he wishes to be. If he wants to stay near you, let him.”

Turning away from the gunwale, Crozier paused. “Stay a few moments more if you wish to, Thomas, then come below and warm yourself. Have Shanks play your brother’s favorite carol. He’ll appreciate that.”

“Thank you, captain, I will do. I just want to make one more throw.”

As Crozier walked back to the hatch, Hartnell launched another snowball into the air; its arc was a high curve against the stars. As beautiful as they were, they were cold and distant, lonely even in their multitudes, and the crammed, musty quarters of a beset bomb vessel seemed infinitely preferable, even to the very vault of heaven. Maybe that was why it seemed that John lingered. Maybe not.

“When I pass over, we’ll go sailing up there together,” Tom whispered, his breath frosting out like white wings unfolding before his face. “But for the time being, John, I’m glad you’ve stayed close.”

He could almost feel the elbow in his ribs, the arm slung about his shoulders, as he turned to go below. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Always the soft one. Happy Christmas to you anyway, brother mine.”


End file.
